


this used to be the future

by nothingbutfic



Category: X-Men, X-Men (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Multi, Mutant Politics, Spoilers, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:09:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4915468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingbutfic/pseuds/nothingbutfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because everyone deserves their happy ending. An exploration of where John was in the 'bright future' at the end of DoFP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this used to be the future

**Author's Note:**

> The fic in question has massive, massive spoilers for the end of the recent 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' movie. Authorially, I am also handwaving the timeline and suggesting that only 8-9 years in character time happened between X2/X3 and the appropriate bits of 'Days of Future Past' because Xavier etc doesn't suddenly look 20 years older than X2 or X3 and because I need it to work that way, frankly.
> 
> Thanks to Amy and D for the beta advice; cheers to John who started me on this pathway, and graciousness to Turner and Sil who kept me going along, and Jess who inspires wonder. The meta-commentary is entirely my own.

2023  
  
*  
  
It hadn't clicked for Logan for a few weeks after he'd woken up or came to, whatever he preferred to call it. Even after the talk from the Professor the reality of it all, of peace and quiet, carried with it a certain unreality to the point where Logan had to stop himself from jumping at shadows. Each morning, he was startled with near-joyous longing at seeing Jean at the faculty breakfast table, or surprised at how much calm contentment there was in saying hello to Storm or Beast. He'd never really thought his life would ever be capable of contentment, and yet there it was, a satisfied warmth at the depth of his gut, a smile that was more genuine than reflexive or guarded or grim.  
  
The schedule helped him adjust - waking at 5am for a run and some sparring in the Room, a shower, coffee, breakfast - and then he taught. Not history - the Professor's little joke - but he taught self-defence to the younger ones and combat to the older ones, and ran a sort of mechanics shop out of a garage for some of the ones who weren't that academic and might otherwise be inclined to run.  
  
And every day, he bumped into people he figured were dead. There was Colossus, offering to go for a run, or working with Storm on materials science, engineering and advanced AP physics. There was Bobby, who took time off from his big firm job in Boston to generally help out and go on about the wonders of the triple-bottom line. There was Rogue, who took small classes of students who needed help with emotional control, and was 'on hand' just in case someone couldn't control themselves. There was Blink, practicing internal location with the teleporters; there was Sunspark; there was Kitty; there was Beast. He ticked them all off, and if this was the dream, he didn't want to wake up.  
  
Beyond the Mansion were what seemed like whole cohorts of graduates, who'd gone off to work in industry, business, government; to set up soup kitchens, to make money, to run scams, because mutants were humans too and about as generous and good, statistically speaking, as the rest of the population. No-one seemed to care much they had powers; they'd grown up in a world where a mutant was known for saving The President, and speaking of, even the Professor didn't seem alarmed that Mystique was at large and whereabouts unknown.  
  
The days were pleasant and the nights short. Even the light streaming through the Mansion's windows seemed different to what Logan remembered - more golden, warm, framing anyone with a halo. Turning outcasts into angels. But the light was soft, and so too were the people. Logan learned that they took things easy and did not strive as much as the Kitty he had known, did not concern themselves as much as the Bobby he had known, did not have as much to prove as the Marie he had known. It wasn't that they were horrible or that they were selfish, but they seemed unfinished, to him. The great struggle had not shaped them, refined them, as it had in the world he had left behind, for in  _this_  world there had been no great struggle.  
  
This, then, was peace.  
  
All the faces – largely happy and generally content, for all there were still troublesome students and hard assignments and discussions that turned into arguments and came out of nowhere - but all those very  _alive_  faces ended up lulling Logan into something near tranquility, and then it finally, suddenly clicked- one of the faces wasn't there.  
  
He strode into Jean's office like a rocket, taut, long strides, knuckles bending like he wanted to claw something. He didn't check if Scott was in, or the Professor, or anyone. "Where's John?"  
  
"Logan, what's wrong-?" She was already putting down her tablet, moving around the desk to calm, to assuage.   
  
"John." He turned to look at her and was surprised he could bear it. "Brown hair, grey eyes, big mouth. About five eight. Called himself Pyro, kid wanting to play supervillain. Where is he?"  
  
Jean hitched herself back onto her desk, one leg absently kicking a little back and forth. Logan tried not to notice the sleek line of her thigh. "Uh, he ran away about eight, nine years ago," she said, concerned but not invested, a good teacher, and tucked a lock of hair behind one ear. "He was always goofing on in class, not hugely disruptive, but attention seeking. Smarter than he let on," she continued, biting her lip in summoning the memory, "and smarter than he wanted to be, I think. He turned tail in junior year, saying he was going to go find Magneto or something, join the struggle." There was something like a scoff: "Do you even know how long it's been since Magneto has been active? You might as well go in search of the Big Bad Wolf."  
  
"Did anyone go after him, did anyone try to bring him back?" He knew there was something a bit wild in his voice, a bit accusatory. Jean's voice lowered, and she crossed her arms in response.  
  
"We don't make anyone come to the school, Logan, and we certainly don't force anyone to stay. You know as well as I do that some people take a very long time to work out their path in life, and it's not up to us to judge that. Besides, he had some...personal issues, and it may have been good for him to leave," she added, lamely, and knowing it sounded lame, she looked out the window instead of at him. He could still read her, at least some of the time.  
  
"Personal issues? All I can remember of the kid is that he barely said two words to Rogue except to tell her to piss off. He spent most of his time trailing after Bobby like a kicked puppy and -" Getting it, his eyes went wide for a second. Logan wasn't really the type to show shock - he recovered too quickly from it, like he did from everything. Sometimes he wondered if that meant he never actually learned the way others were supposed to, without ever having to cope with shock, to adjust, to grow: but then he always had the crisp memory of pain as a guide. "Oh."  
  
There was a teasing glint in her voice as she turned to look at him again, and he knew he'd given her an opening somehow. "Some of the more immature males have very intense crushes, and they're often unsure how to constructively engage with their feelings."  
  
In this universe, of course, Jean was happily married. Sure, she was amused and even touched by his sentiment, but the lines were drawn. And it seemed that Logan - the Logan who'd seen her die once, killed her the second time around, and learned to let go in Japan - was more comfortable with that than he might have expected. He'd always love her, but he wasn't  _in_  love with her. That deep craving was silent.  
  
This Jean, this Professor, this  _world_  - they all knew this wasn’t ‘their’ Logan, and just accepted the occasional difference, the need to retell stories and invoke memories he didn’t have – there was something like pity in the way they treated him, so damaged, so broken, the warrior without a war. It was too much to ask, perhaps, for them to think about the sort of world that had shaped him into the man he was, to wonder at the edges of what  _they_  might be, as well.  
  
Logan made a noncommittal rumble in the back of his throat. "Well, this kid's a kid. I expect he needs someone to help him through stuff."  
  
"God, Logan, you don't think we tried? Some of the charges here even try to kill each other, so when someone who is not insane, not manifesting Omega-class powers, and _not_ claiming to be my lab-born _child_ from an alternate reality t's kind of a relief. If someone wants to take a step back we try to help - but we also remember it's their choice to go."  
  
Logan looked at her. Oh, he'd admired her in the last few weeks, admired them all. But there were less wrinkles around her eyes than he remembered; less strain; and less compassion in those deep eyes. This Jean had been lucky enough to be more teacher than hero, and this world hadn't sharpened her and laid her on the altar of sacrifice the ways his world had. In many ways, he was fundamentally grateful to have her again in any way, and yet - this world hadn't seen enough failure to require kindness in return. He certainly didn't like the way she referred to some of the students as  _charges_.  
  
"It was a shame; out of his year we got a lot of good graduates, several who might be on call for the…X-Men." Logan had learned in the past few weeks that the X-Men were only discussed furtively in this world, with an undercurrent of embarrassment, something sealed away in the vault of memory and only hauled out for nostalgic amusement. "Compared to Bobby, or Rogue, or Kitty, he felt inadequate. I tried counseling him a few times, but a teenage boy's head is quite the swamp."  
  
Pity the world that had no X-Men. Logan looked at the woman he'd loved for a decade and realized she was a stranger.  
  
Making a snap decision, Logan reached out and swept up the keys from the table near where he was standing. "Tell Scott I'm grateful for the loan of his car."  
  
"Logan, what are you doing-"  
  
He turned back, and there was something hard and broken in his eyes that stopped Jean in her tracks. "Everyone deserves their happy ending," he said, and then he was gone.  
  
*  
  
He was raring down the highway towards Boston when the call came. The old-fashioned radio of the 72' Chevrolet (because of course Scott had a soft spot for the gleaming and the oft-loved) gave a whir and the indicator settled itself into a band that definitely wasn't on the typical FM dial. Not that there was an FM dial anymore, strictly speaking - everything was digital these days.  
  
"Logan," Professor Xavier said pleasantly over the communicator, "I believe you have some unfinished business with one of our former students."  
  
"Yeah." Logan never took his eyes off the road. He didn't feel like giving the Professor the respect of engaging with him, in a way. "Wondered why no one went out for him."  
  
"Logan, if we chased after everyone who left, we'd have no time to teach the students who stay. Most of them go back to their families; for everyone the door is always welcome - but they have to make that choice themselves."  
  
"Do you know he went back to his family?"  
  
"Logan, I really think that isn't the point-"  
  
"Do you know he went back to his family?"  
  
"Last time I checked with Cerebro he was engaging in petty acts of theft and burglary, minor property destruction."  
  
Logan grunted. "So, not back with his family then."  
  
"Logan, I don't see why-"  
  
Logan interrupted him. "In my world, Pyro joined up with Magneto, killed a lot of people, went to prison. But the last thing I heard was that the kid got out, went to college, started organizing a proper mutant studies curriculum and led the first civil disobedience protests in Central Park when the Sentinels took over. Bobby offered to take him away but the kid told him unless the X-Men could rescue all ten thousand people he wasn't gonna come. He died a while later when the Sentinels cleaned out the park. I think he stopped ‘em for about three minutes, enough for some of the protesters to get away."  
  
There was silence on the other end of the connection.  
  
"Professor, I didn't come from a pretty place. You died, Jean died, Scott died, a lot of people died - and the one good thing in that world was that one kid was so fucking shocked by all the stupid that he actually got his shit together before the end."  
  
"But he died as well, Logan."  
  
"Yeah, well, the world sucks sometimes."  
  
"We're a school, Logan, we're not in the hero business. In this reality, the X-Men initiative hasn't been activated for nearly twenty years. It's not our main work."  
  
Measured, calm, and with just a trace of pride. He'd heard that pride in his own Professor's voice, and in the younger one he'd met in 1973 - that slight edge of smugness. Good to know some faults were shared, no matter the damn timeline.  
  
"This  _is_  your main work, Professor.  _Saving people_  is your main work, whether you do it as heroes or you do it as a school teacher."  
  
"We have to allow people a choice-"  
  
Too much resentment boiled over in him: at the Professor, at Jean, at a world that had been allowed to be happy. "I'm not saying you stop someone from having a choice, I'm saying when someone stumbles you offer them your hand."  
  
There was a further pause, and then - "I saw the future you came from in 1973, the pain it caused all of you. I not only kept that promise to you, Logan, I did better - I kept everyone alive."  
  
Logan suddenly wondered what it was like to feel you'd succeeded by improving on a version of you from a timeline that didn't exist any more.  
  
"You kept that promise but you didn't understand why it was important. You haven't suffered the losses my Professor had. You've been too busy being  _content_." He made it sound like a curse word. "Can you tell me where the kid is?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Is it because he went after Magneto? Do you write someone off because they're mad, bad, angry and remind you of the one person who managed to get along okay without you?"  
  
There was a sigh on the other end of the line. "He's in a little town at the back-end of New York State, off I-87. I'll input the location into the car's database."  
  
"Thanks, Professor."  
  
"Logan, when you return, let's have a chat about what you think we haven't learned due to our...contentedness."  
  
"Right, Professor."  
  
"And I'll try to understand." There was a returning warmth in that voice, a hint of a willingness to consider. It was a start.  
  
Logan drove on into the evening.  
  
*  
  
He found the kid in a small bar in a small town, shoulders hunched and wearing jeans and a flannel shirt that was too big on him.  
  
"Hey, fellas. Gotta warn you, this kid is underage."  
  
John exploded, all indignation and booze. "What the fuck? I am totally not underage."  
  
"Fake I.D.," Logan explained to the bartender, coming over all sympathetic, and gave a 'what can you do?' shrug before grabbing John under the arms and literally hauling him off the stool and dragging him out of the bar. The kid thrashed weakly, spluttering, and Logan remembered to pull a twenty out of his wallet and tossed it on the floor. "That's for your troubles, gentlemen. I'll make sure this kid gets back to his folks."  
  
A short while later and he managed to get the kid into the car and drive off. He locked the passenger's side door from the inside and largely took his chance.  
  
"I could burn you."  
  
"You haven't."  
  
"I could totally  _burn you_."  
  
"But you haven't." Pause. “You look like a lumberjack, bud.”  
  
Logan pulled into the motel just outside of town – the car’s navigation system had all the details, thanks to the Professor. He warned the kid not to bolt with a finger, and then got out, crossing around the car to unlocked the passenger's side door with the car keys. John sat in the seat like he’d been defeated, shoulders slumped and eyes fixedly staring at the dash. Taking a deep breath, Logan hauled the kid out by the scruff of his jacket collar, his other hand having slipped down and unclipped the seatbelt.  
  
Frogmarching him to the motel room door, Logan grunted in his ear: "Keys." He realized the kid was  _this close_  to blubbering: his face was swelling in a distorted, angry way, eyes red-rimmed and mucus dripped from his nose all over his upper lip.  
  
Sighing, Logan tried his friendly voice. "Look, bub, I'm not here to hurt ya, and you're not gonna get to die like the big bad today, no matter how much you provoke me. So give me the keys and we'll take this inside."  
  
Snuffling, one hand wiping his nose, the kid then cleaned it on his jacket and reached in to hand over the keys. Logan slid the main door key home, turned it, and managed a neighbourly nod to the woman a few rooms down who'd come out to have a look, cigarette in hand. "Those things'll kill you, you know," he offered.  
  
She flipped him the finger and he slid inside with the kid, closing the door behind him.  
  
*  
  
As motel rooms went, this was pretty much a dump. Peeling paint, dirty windows, holes in the curtains and a few decrepit bits of furniture. The TV was one of the old flatscreen ones, not anything holo like they'd had for the past five years.  
  
Logan tossed the kid onto the edge of the bed. "Stay there and shut up."  
  
"Why should I-"  
  
Snikt. One claw extended in a flash, and carefully stayed there, about one inch from the kid's crotch. "Because you're gonna be a good kid, that's why, or you'll have an unfortunate accident to explain at the hospital."  
  
Logan did a quick search in the bathroom and cupboards for any ammo, but the cupboards were bare and the bathroom was rank. There was a mostly empty bottle of Wild Turkey on the dresser and a few more empties in the bin. Logan brandished it at John.  
  
"Wild Turkey? You don't have much class, do ya kid."  
  
"I made a few suspect life choices, okay?" offered the kid with flat, red eyes. "I can't afford good booze."  
  
Settling the bottle on the little table like an accusation, Logan grabbed a rattan chair from the thing the motel laughingly advertised as a desk, he turned it around and straddled it, arms resting on the back.  
  
It wasn't fear that had made the kid blubber, he realised: he'd seen Pyro in at least one world face down a heap of armed cops and squad cars, and although his choices at the time were pretty stupid, it wasn't fear that had governed him then. No, this reaction was pure humiliation - the shame of it all, the possibility of being beaten. That was good, meant the kid wasn't going to do something stupid if he knew he could get his ass kicked.  
  
But it also underscored how young everyone seemed to him. In his world, mutants grew up early, they developed thicker skins and stiffer spines, or they never grew up at all.   
  
In this world, John had never had to pick himself up from a fair thrashing. He'd never shown himself he  _could_  overcome self-loathing and contempt, and so he'd ended up here. A crappy motel and a crappy life.   
  
Still, at least he never got those damn stupid tips in his hair.  
  
"So. You ran away."  
  
The kid didn’t take the lead. "Telling those guys I was a  _kid_ , fuck you!"  
  
"Maybe if you stop acting like a kid I'll stop treating you like one." That sounded reasonable.  
  
The kid glared at him for a while, but at least he wasn't sniffling any more. He cleaned himself up a bit with the arm of his jacket (and that was just one more layer of stain on the fabric) and rested his arms back down on the lumpy mattress, leaning back like he was happy to be there. Fine.  
  
"I understand you were looking for Magneto," Logan tried again after a few minutes, because really, he had shit to do and wasn't about to get into a staring competition with a kid in his 20s.  
  
The kid said nothing.  
  
"Have you even  _seen_  Magneto?"  
  
"No, but-"  
  
Logan ran down his answer without remorse. "Are you aware of any reports that Magneto is still active?"  
  
"No, but he's got to be out there. Planning. Fighting for our people."  
  
"Kid. You know the old guy who comes to the Mansion every now and then and gives a class in rhetoric and history? Professor Lensherr?"  
  
"Yeah. He was pretty good with the speech-making. I mean, he mostly showed us archive clips of President Kennedy - the second one, Ted, I mean - but it was still a good class."  
  
"That old guy was Magneto."  
  
"You're shitting me." The kid was wide-eyed. Some of his self-belief had begun to crumble. He was like a scared animal- once you got past his defences, he might actually learn to trust you.  
  
"Honest, that was Magneto."  
  
Still, there was a wariness in the kid's grey eyes. Logan figured you didn't live from motel to motel for five years without it. "...He doesn't look like the pictures I've seen."  
  
"The pictures you've seen probably date from 1973. Age does things to a guy. Stuff...sags. Plus he probably has false teeth."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"No, I don't know if he's got false teeth or not. But the point is, kid, he's made his choice. There's no movement out here for you to join. No one to give you easy answers."  
  
"I never said I wanted easy answers."  
  
"Doesn't look like you wanted answers at all, or you'd have finished high school."  
  
The kid went all sullen. "If they wanted me back they would have come for me."  
  
Logan stayed calm. He wasn't going to be baited by some two-bit punk-ass playing at being a supervillain. "Actually, I came to find you."  
  
That got a reply, a very palpable cry of pain and anger: "Only took you this long!"  
  
"Yeah, well," Logan had to admit that had some truth to it. "Everyone thought you must have needed to find your way. But I still came."  
  
"I gave up on anyone coming to find me," John muttered, and one hand started to trace the outline of a lighter in his jeans pocket.  
  
"In other words, you ran away to punish everyone and then got pissed it didn't work."  
  
"Yeah, well." John shrugged and looked down at the mattress, trying to sound tough. "I just thought someone would come. Dr. Grey tried to talk to me - but maybe Storm, or Beast, or one of my  _supposed_  friends could have manned up and come found me."  
  
"Jeez, kid, did you ever think they assumed you'd be even madder if they didn't leave you alone?"  
  
His head snapped up: no, he had not thought of that possibility. Logan was struck by just how  _innocent_  John was, this time around. Although come to think of it, the John he'd known was selfishly dense enough to not realise it either. It had always been about him, never about what other people might mean, or might think, or how they just  _might_  be trying to help. Before that John had grown up, of course. Before Alcatraz, and New York.  
  
It was really tiring playing counsellor to a whole damn dimension.  
  
"Look, the Professor has this thing about choice and everyone making their own way, right?" That got a nod. "So sometimes the people here take that a bit too literal and think they totally can't interfere. No matter what. Even to help a friend."  
  
"...So basically it's like a really crappy episode of  _Star Trek_."  
  
"Never saw it, kid." Although Logan thought he might ask Beast if he'd mind turning mentor.  
  
"Can you stop calling me 'kid'?"  
  
"Sure, kid," Logan said evenly, and stared him down. "Your teachers think you were pretty smart."  
  
The kid mumbled something: when Logan asked "what was that?" he finally brought his head out of the slouch - "Didn't want to be smart. Wanted to be a fucking Omega-class mutant. When I was at the Mansion, Rogue was in my year, and  _Iceman_ , and Colossus was a T.A., and Shadowcat was in the year below and I was just this fucker who can't do anything without a lighter."  
  
"So? It's good to have limits, kid, it makes you less likely to do something stupid. And Beast isn't Omega-class but he's damn smart. We got kids with powers all over the place. Some of 'em won't graduate and some go insane. Having a smart kid who doesn't start randomly killing people is a good year for us."  
  
"I'm not as smart as Beast," the kid said sullenly.  
  
Logan laughed at him. "How would you know if you left before you did your SATs?"  
  
And then the kid actually grinned.  
  
Logan continued: "You might not be the kind of smart Beast is, but there's lots of kinds of smart. Dr. Grey is pretty intelligent, for example." He cleared his throat while trying not to think about just how capable she was.  
  
Fortunately the kid wasn't really observing, too busy snickering at his own internal joke. "Yeah, and she doesn't quote Shakespeare or Tacitus at you every lesson. I spent half the night on Wikipedia just learning what the hell Professor McCoy had actually said."  
  
"See? You did learn something then. And you applied yourself."  
  
The kid tucked a strand of brown hair behind his ear. "And Dr. Grey said a few things...I didn't really want to hear what she was saying."  
  
"Happens sometimes, bub. We all need some time to work stuff through."  
  
The kid near exploded with laughter. "I didn't need this long!"  
  
There was a pause. Something in the kid softened: he pulled his lighter from his pocket, flicked it open with a 'clink' and started making a small flame do figure-of-eights around his splayed fingers. That fringe fell over his eyes and went he spoke again, his voice seemed younger and very small, shorn of that anger. "...So what's it like at the Mansion?"  
  
Logan told him.  
  
*  
  
Logan phoned ahead, told Jean not to worry, told the Professor they could have a talk. When he pulled the car up outside the Mansion's main door, the kid hopped out, took his duffle bag from out of the boot and breathed in, deep.  
  
"Hey, John," Logan told him. "It'll be okay."  
  
"I'm not a kid anymore?"  
  
"If you were you wouldn't have made the choice to do this."  
  
Logan gestured with his thumb and let the kid go first through the solid front doors. The duffle was one of the School's, the X-symbol old and faded, as old and faded as the rest of John's clothing. The kid - John - had told him he'd scavenged and kept himself together from stolen credit cards and petty theft. He'd done a bit of property damage - burning down meeting halls for the local chapters of the Friends of Humanity from Maine to New Jersey - but he hadn't gotten caught.  
  
In time there would probably have to be an accounting, but Logan thought he'd let John wrap his head around everything else first.  
  
There was a small crowd gathered on the stairs - some of the older students from John's year, and some of the younger ones who insisted on trailing, too nosy and without enough sense. Logan had come to see the school as more of a community than he remembered it - in this history the Professor had re-started the school earlier and it had lasted longer, with one cohort following another without interruption. No Magneto, no Stryker, no Phoenix.   
  
No damage. No scar tissue. No learning.  
  
Some went off to college like Bobby and Rogue and came back to help tutor: potentially there was a place for everyone, even the runaways, and John wasn't so high on the list of threats that anyone was gonna make a fuss.  
  
"Go on, bub." Logan shrugged. He stayed out of a sense of loyalty to people who never existed, awkward on the edge of the crowd.  
  
John gave him a small conspiratorial grin: "Thanks, Professor Howlett."  
  
Logan blinked: he was really going to have to get used to people calling him that.  
  
John dumped the bag at the door and took one step forward into the lobby of the Mansion. He looked around, and they looked back. Shadowcat broke from behind the crowd, pushing her way through to give him a huge hug, and he hugged her back. They looked at each other with a certain joy, and John whistled. "Jesus, but you've gotten all old, Kitty Kat."  
  
"Have you looked in the mirror lately, John?" Kitty's eyes twinkled but she cut him down with a quick line. "All that rough living makes you look about thirty."  
  
"Shut the fuck up," he told her fondly, because even fond John swore like he was a big man. Raising his eyes to the stairs, he saw one familiar face in particular and raised an eyebrow, the hint of a smirk on his lips.  
  
Rogue pushed Bobby forward, despite herself.  
  
Bobby clambered down the stairs, easing his way around people, all long limbs and easy strides. They look at each other for a moment, the popsicle and the flamer. The kid who'd run away; the kid who'd stayed, with extra facial hair.  
  
Bobby spoke first: "You should have stayed at school, dumbass."  
  
"Yeah. Guess now I'll do some night classes and catch up. Just so I can remind you who's the smarter here."  
  
Now it was Bobby's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Really? You're not just gonna goof off for old times sake." It wasn’t really a question.  
  
"Hey, I might even go to college. Got told that could be an option for me - I understand you studied accounting, right?"  
  
"What, you gonna call me boring?"  
  
"I don't need to  _call_  you that to establish the fact you  _are_  boring."  
  
A second, and then Bobby broke into a grin. "Come'ere," he said, reaching out and pulling John into a bear hug. By this point most of the students, young and old, had drifted off - peace was very boring, and there didn't seem to be any useful gossip. Kitty had assured him she would check out where he could sleep, squeezed his hand, and gone to find Storm.  
  
"Really? Accounting?" queried John when the hug was over, and Rogue had crossed over to stand just behind Bobby a little, not quite included in the reunion.  
  
"You know, it's not like there's a war on, John. You can be a part of society, an  _incredibly annoying_  part of society." Logan wondered briefly how many times they'd argued through the same things in a life led parallel; they'd done it before and now they were doing it again. But safer, softer, stronger - here they had less to lose, no fragile egos to bruise. No need to run away in anger- it had already been done.  
  
Still amused, Bobby reached for Rogue's gloved hand, entwining their fingers together.  
  
John looked at Rogue, looked at Bobby, and then raised an eyebrow. "...Also, when the fuck did you man up and get a beard? Oh - no pun intended - sorry Rogue. I wasn't suggesting you were his beard. I still appreciate you have an incredible rack."  
  
Rogue punched him then, knocking John onto his ass. Logan winced.  
  
She stood over him, arms folded, her streak of white hair haloed by the light streaming in through the windows. "You're still an immature little  _bitch_ , John. Grow up and don't run off this time." Nodding to Bobby, she strode off, muttering unkind but perfectly accurate things under her breath.  
  
John sat there and rubbed his jaw. "She has a better right hook than you do, Drake."  
  
"She certainly has a better right hook than _you_ do. You know, she was the one who made me meet you, when we heard you were coming back. She was the one willing to think you might have changed."  
  
"Well, I haven't changed yet. But I'm learning."  
  
He put his hand out - grey eyes met blue - Bobby took it.  
  
"Has anyone told you you look like a fucking teddy bear with that beard?"  
  
Bobby just looked at him, one eyebrow raised - 'do you want me to drop you on your ass again?' was implied, but he never said a word. John met his look just as evenly and after a few carefully stretched out moments, Bobby braced his legs and helped John up with a grunt.  
  
"Have you put on weight? You seem a bit heavy there."  
  
"Shut up. We can't all be twinks."  
  
"I don't even want to know how you know what that means."  
  
John looped an arm around Bobby's neck. "Like I said, Drake," he proclaimed airily, looking at the paintings on the Mansion walls, the panelling, the windows, drinking up the sight with a hungry curiosity like it was all new to him, "I'm learning a lot of things."  
  
Carefully unhooking his arm as they climbed the stairs slowly, John waited for his moment to bring his hand down, and Bobby looked quite shocked, wide eyes and a cautious glance at his friend like he didn't know him at all. "...Did you just slap my ass?"  
  
John grinned, all teeth. "Do you want me to lie to you, Drake?"  
  
Bobby shoved him playfully. "I think you've gotten even  _weirder_ , John-boy."  
  
  
*  
  
Logan was sitting in the ground floor kitchen, drinking a Coors Light he'd yanked out of the fridge. He heard footsteps creaking along the hallway, and tried to ignore the instinct to tense up. This was a world that needed no soldiers.  
  
John appeared in the doorway, a yawn taking up at least half his face. He shuffled into the kitchen, all slouching pajama pants, nightshirt and a bathrobe that was way too big for him. He looked like he'd been caught wearing his dad's clothes. The young man saw Logan looking him over and instantly tried to wrap the dressing gown tighter around his waist. "They're still sorting out clothes and shit for me," he said defensively.  
  
Logan nodded and remembered a younger kid with blond hair and blue eyes who'd jostled for attention in this very kitchen, in a world that never existed.  
  
He sighed. The mansion was full of ghosts who walked and spoke and lived, enough to make him feel like he was the dead one, some days. He'd get used to it, he knew, that wasn't the problem - he could get used to everything. But sometimes he felt like a fish out of water.  
  
He caught John bent over, rummaging around in the bottom of the fridge.  
  
Logan grunted. "There's only Coors Light, bub."  
  
"Fuck, we have to get ourselves better liquor choices here." John swore, but he got himself a beer anyway and flipped the lid on the edge of the counter, before settling in next to Logan.  
  
They both chugged a mouthful or two before John spoke.  
  
"Thanks for coming back for me."  
  
Another grunt. That was what people did for each other: what friends and soldiers did, keeping to their bonds of camaraderie or love. He'd come from a world where people had sacrificed themselves for less. "Least I could do. Trouble is, everyone's too busy running conflict resolution workshops in this place that no one remembers that conflict can be a good thing. Sometimes you need to run away so you can be brought back. Sometimes you need to yell to get it out."  
  
And Logan reflected that he and the Professor had something damn close to a proper real yelling match that afternoon, almost two hours of raised voices, justifications, defensive remarks and a few near insults. And at the end of it, Logan thought he understood better, really understood, what this world had given him, and what he could give this world. When he woke up, he thought it was paradise, but now he began to see that all worlds were imperfect.  
  
They stood there in silence that was almost companionable, until the moment John didn't know to keep his mouth shut.  
  
"So, all the students say you're in love with Dr. Grey."  
  
"And all the teachers say you're in love with Bobby Drake." Sadly it wasn't the piercing barb he'd hoped.  
  
"Well, wouldn't you be? Have you seen that fucker? He's funny, he's got a great smile, and he's got this truly incredible ass."  
  
Continuing, the younger mutant seemed relatively content, already planning out a great and comfortable future. "I'll get over it. Still, at least this way I can be the first one to make a 'flamer' joke about myself."  
  
Logan just raised his eyebrows, felt very, very old and took another swig. Still, John was gonna be disappointed: Rogue had used that nickname for him for a while, from what Logan understood.  
  
The kid had developed a certain brave defense by showing everything on the outside. Logan thought with some help this John would go down with a grin on his face and at peace with himself.  
  
Just like that other John in dead New York, who'd tried too hard and burned too bright, and fallen knowing he'd done all he'd can.   
  
The ghosts loomed on the edge of Logan's vision again. Shaking them off, he guessed he should just suck it up and go see Jean for a counseling session.  
  
After a deep breath, in his nose, and out his mouth, John spoke again. "What's it like, watching them be happy, and knowing you're not involved?"  
  
Pity the world that had no X-Men? He thought of Jean, dead. Scott, dead. Rogue, so full of hate for her own power that she acted like she had a disease. Pity the world that  _needed_  X-Men, that trained kids to be heroes and soldiers and little more.  
  
Maybe these mutants weren't as brave as the ones he'd known. But maybe they could be better. Maybe the braveness had squeezed everything else out, turned doctors into monsters, forged teenagers into killers. Had they really been so capable, when their world didn't allow them to be anything but?  
  
At least here there were real choices, and he could roughen up some of the too-clean edges.  
  
"Better'n some of the alternatives. Be happy, kid."  
  
They clinked their beers and swallowed a few more mouthfuls, and all was right with the world. Then:  
  
"I mean, he is so  _fucking hot_ , it's like a goddamn  _crime_. Even  _with_  a stupid beard."  
  
"John?"  
  
The young man looked over at him.  
  
"Shut up and drink your beer."


End file.
